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Background
Since the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997, CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions have grown by an annual average of 1.7 percent. This is faster than the 0.9 percent annual average growth of CO2 emissions in the seven-year period (1990-97) prior to the signing of the Kyoto Protocol. The failure of the Kyoto Agreement is attributed mostly to the fact that the largest emitters were not included. The United States of America(US), top emitter at that time, was not part of the agreement by choice, and China and India, the second and third largest emitters, were not included by design. In 2015, the Paris Agreement introduced the concept of nationally determined contributions (NDCs), to eliminate differences between countries in terms of historic contribution to climate change and capability to address it. The result was that countries offered CO2 reductions close to what they would have achieved without the agreement. The Conference of Parties (COP) sessions that followed the Paris Agreement have ended with similar agreements, but CO2 emissions continue to increase.
In the period 2019-2023, CO2 emissions increased by an annual average rate of 0.8 percent, notwithstanding the fact that CO2 emissions decreased substantially during the pandemic period of 2020-22. If CO2 emissions continue to increase at the same pace, the Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) estimates that the carbon budget for high probability of limiting average global temperature to 2°C will be exhausted by 2040. A new paper that investigated 1500 climate policies across countries and sectors between 1998 and 2022 concluded that their impact on emissions has so far been highly uncertain.
Source: Statistical Review of World Energy, 2024
Disciplining the Global South
In 1967, Prof. Horst Rittel suggested the term “wicked problem” for a class of social system problems which are poorly formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision-makers with conflicting values, and where the ramifications in the whole system are thoroughly confusing. The adjective “wicked” described the mischievous and even evil quality of these problems, where proposed “solutions” often turn out to be worse than the symptoms. Although Prof. Rittel was referring to problems in urban planning, some narratives on climate change fit this description. The climate crisis is wicked because three-quarters of the world’s population is yet to industrialise and develop, and there is no perfect substitute for fossil fuels, that enabled one-fourth of the population to industrialise and develop. Science has enabled development of clean energy sources, but these are expensive as they require a completely new support infrastructure. Wealthy countries can subsidise the adoption of clean energy, but poor countries cannot subsidise to the same extent. Climate change is wicked because the majority of the population that made little or no contribution to climate change are also the victims of most of the natural disasters influenced by it.
Responses to climate change proposed by academics and analysts are also wicked, as most attempt to invoke guilt, assign blame and consequently responsibility to address climate change. The Global South blames overconsumption by the Global North, the North blames overpopulation in the South, clean energy producers blame fossil fuel producers, socialists blame capitalists, the young blame the old and the dead and private business blames complacent politicians and bureaucrats. Technology optimists and ecomodernists blame no one, believing technology can potentially solve all problems. However, the dominant narrative promoted by the Global North and by the IPCC blames everyone (democratises guilt). This enables universal culpability that conveniently avoids inequalities; climate change is framed as a folly of humanity, rather than the Global North’s exploitation of the rest. Social theories have shown that, risk and their associated discourses of culpability (such as in the case of climate change), are socially constructed and irrevocably political in nature. The Global North has constructed climate risk by selecting universal destruction as the danger for attention, and assigned culpability for the threat largely on the Global South and its overpopulation, a preconceived Malthusian fear. The South, the victim, is deemed blameworthy, and the North is authorised to take action against the South’s choices. The South, which carries over 80 percent of the middle- and low-income populations can easily be cast as the dominant carbon emitter based on the Malthusian fear of large numbers.
The Global South blames overconsumption by the Global North, the North blames overpopulation in the South, clean energy producers blame fossil fuel producers, socialists blame capitalists, the young blame the old and the dead and private business blames complacent politicians and bureaucrats.
The case of India is illustrative. India’s CO2 emissions was over 3 billion tonnes (BT) in 2023, the third largest after China and the United States. India’s total emissions was above that of the whole of the African continent (1.78 BT) and also that of the Middle East (2.899 BT). As the third largest emitter, India is criticised for its energy choices. In 2023, 89 percent of India’s primary energy (not including unprocessed biomass) was derived from fossil fuels. But, India’s per person commercial energy (not including unprocessed biomass) consumption of 27 giga joules (GJ) in 2023 is below world average and well below minimum energy required for achieving high levels of human development. India’s per person carbon emission of 2.1 tonnes in 2023 was less than half of 4.75 tonnes per person, the world average in 2023. Despite its low per person CO2 emissions, India emerges as the third-largest carbon emitter because of its large population size. Hypothetically, if India is considered as two countries, with half the current population each, the total emissions of each will slip below that of Africa, the European Union and the Middle East. If divided into three countries with one third of the population in each, each will have an emission below that of Japan. Each of these countries would have more than three times Japan's population but lower total emissions, thus making them more carbon-efficient than Japan. A mere rearrangement of numbers will not only remove India (by three!) from the top emitters list but also make it a more carbon-efficient country than Japan. The total carbon emitted into the atmosphere would remain unchanged, but the countries that can be blamed for emissions changes. Maldives, a small island state that has a population just over 500,000, emits twice as much CO2 as India. The GDP per person of Maldives is more than four times that of India, and fossil fuels are used for everything, including power generation. Though each island measures only a few square kilometres, many residents own large sports utility vehicles, and petroleum-powered boats take tourists from island to island. However, the low population numbers enables Maldives to project itself as a victim of climate change rather than a perpetrator. Counterfeiting the World with numbers is convenient, but it does not constitute a solution for climate change.
Issues for thought
It cannot be denied that delayed development in the Global South is one of the key reasons behind the increase in CO2 emissions. As the per person incomes in most of the Global South is yet to cross US$ 5000, many countries are burning coal, that is both affordable and abundant. To shift out of fossil fuels, the Global South requires financial support.
Raghuram Rajan, a noted economist, suggests to create a global carbon incentive (GCI) programme. Under GCI, every country that emits more than the global average of around 5 tonnes of carbon per person, would pay annually into the GCI, with the amount calculated by multiplying the excess emissions per person by the population and the GCI. If the GCI started at US$10/tonne, large sums can be raised from high per person carbon emitters. Countries below the global per person average would receive a commensurate payout. This way, every country would face an effective loss of $10/tonne for every additional tonne of carbon it emits per person. This would be a rule, like a speeding fine rather than compensation for carbon sin.
More recently, Avinash Persaud, another noted economist and special advisor on climate change to IDB, and his colleague propose that low-cost foreign equity and debt commitments to fund purchase existing performing bank loans in renewable energy (RE) across the developing world, used to create a decarbonisation fund. These loans will be purchased at an attractive premium, on condition that the that the proceeds are invested in new RE loans. If the commitment is broken, banks will lose half the premium. This can double local investment in RE. The economists suggest that the purchased loans be repackaged into diversified, low-cost portfolio of securities. The sale proceeds of these new global low risk securities would be used buy new RE loans from banks doubling investment again. According to the economists, more than US$200 billion per year of new RE loans can be created, that would bridge the local finance gap and in addition create global markets for carbon mitigation.
Both are valuable suggestions that require greater attention from multilateral climate negotiating platforms. The philosopher politician Edmund Burke observed: “Guilt is never a rational thing; it distorts all the faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason, it puts him into confusion.” Climate narratives that use blame narratives to monetise universal guilt need to take note.
Source: CO2 emissions – Statistical Review of World Energy; Population – UN Population Fund
Lydia Powell is a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.
Akhilesh Sati is a Program Manager at the Observer Research Foundation.
Vinod Kumar Tomar is a Assistant Manager at the Observer Research Foundation.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
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